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Staff training is in Beth Hussey's bones. She started figuring it out at her family's restaurant in the 80s, and it became a professional focus as she moved up the service industry ladder from busser (where her brother stuck her when she first started) to owner. All in all she's opened 17 full service restaurants in her career and has trained up the staff at each of them.

In next week's post Beth will walk us through the unique training approach she's honed over her career (and also talk about Shifty, the staff training app she created), but this week we went over what most—we're talking at least 90%—of bars and restaurants get wrong when training their staff.

Here's the typical staff training Beth sees bars and restaurants using:

The last two weeks we picked Rob Austin's brain about the proven goal and process he uses for social media and 6 simple marketing efforts he's recently used at Leader Bar, a neighborhood pub in Irving Park, CHI.

This week, still thirsty, we're returning to Rob's knowledge well to talk about social media strategy—what to post, when/how often to post, how to post about events, etc. In our conversation we sort of coalesced around 6 points that a bar, restaurant, and brewery can use to develop their social media strategy:

Doing social media for a bar or restaurant can feel daunting, especially if you've got a million other things going on. Many folks just don't really commit to it.

It's easy to see why because questions abound: What should you post? When should you post? How often should you post? And on which platforms? And what if you're not a talented photographer?

We'll dive into all those things in detail over the summer. But today we're sharing high level advice from marketing expert Rob Austin, who runs marketing for Leader Bar in Chicago. His advice is this: your only goal with social media—and any visual marketing—is to show prospective guests what they can do at your bar, restaurant, or brewery.

Last week we picked Rob Austin's brain about the proven goal and process he uses for social media at Leader Bar, a neighborhood pub in Irving Park, CHI. High level stuff.

This week I intended to zoom out even more by talking with Rob about which channels bars and restaurants should focus on. There's social media, but what about print? Radio ads? Email marketing? And so on.

His answer came quickly: you can't be using too many channels; use as many as you can.

That short answer is also paralyzing: "OK, so then what should I do now? How do I decide where to start if I'm supposed to be doing everything?"

Sensing that hesitation, Rob quickly turned the conversation to tactics and examples, and proceeded to reel off a list of marketing irons he's currently got in the fire at Leader Bar, and they're things almost anyone can do in just a few simple steps:

This week we've got short interview clips with two NYC bar owners that describe two different aspects of the craft beer customer pool. Keep on reading to learn more about their points of view.

Gerard Leary has built a loyal group of regulars at two very different concepts in two very different parts of NYC.

In one corner there's One Mile House, an awesome (but now closed) bar/restaurant with a ton of top-level taps in bustling downtown Manhattan. On the other hand is his current venture, a small neighborhood spot in Sunnyside, Queens called Sweet Avenue.

The location and clientele of the two couldn't be more different, but he built a loyal following at each. What's his secret for finding and keeping these folks coming in?

For Gerard it's mostly about you and your space: you need to foster a community, meaning you need an ecosystem where customers feel welcome and comfortable.

Here are some of the strategies he uses to keep his finely-tuned ecosystem balanced and thriving at Sweet Avenue:

Gerard Leary, owner of Sweet Avenue in Sunnyside, Queens, has been in the bar and restaurant business since the beginning of Yelp. At this point has seen it all:

• Yelp reviews left for his business that were clearly about a different restaurant.
• When told there was a wait for a table, people have threatened to leave him a bad Yelp review if they weren't seated immediately.
• And, of course, Yelp has relentlessly tried to contact him in myriad ways to try and get him to pay to claim and manage his business listings.

No doubt this same stuff is happening to all bars and restaurants. So what do you do about it? Gerard has come to a simple, elegant solution: ignore it. All of it. Spend your time on other aspects of your business.

Here are some key takeaways from our conversation about Yelp:

Kyle Sherrer is the owner of Backpack Brands of Newburgh, NY, which puts out three craft brands:

• Graft Cider, a craft cider that innovates on flavors. Think cutting edge craft beer, but for cider.
• Hudson North Cider, a hazy dry cider brand that's lower in sugar than their competitors (like Austin Eastciders, for example).
• Ritual Hard Kombucha, a west-coast style hard kombucha made in NY.

We recently sat down and spoke with Kyle about a range of topics:

• How each of his brands came to be
• The swings and misses he's faced along the way
• Where he sees the non-beer craft market—and really the entire craft market—headed in the next few years as preferences change and mature.

Kyle Sherrer is the owner of Backpack Brands of Newburgh, NY, which puts out three craft brands:

• Graft Cider, a craft cider that innovates on flavors. Think cutting edge craft beer, but for cider.
• Hudson North Cider, a hazy dry cider brand that's lower in sugar than their competitors (like Austin Eastciders, for example).
• Ritual Hard Kombucha, a west-coast style hard kombucha made in NY.

Kyle's been in the cider game for a long time, so it was super interesting talking to him about how bars and restaurants can sell more cider. In Kyle's mind, cider's seat at the beverage table comes from its inextricable link to comfort and nostalgia. That link means bars and restaurants are in a great spot to sell more of it.

Darian Everding manages London Underground, a craft beer and whisk(e)y bar in Ames, IA.

Post-pandemic the London Underground has invested in staff systems to make sure everything runs smoothly—stuff like staff messaging apps, learning/training policies, and checklists.

That last one has been huge. Darian has created a robust checklist system that allows London Underground's staff to be more accountable to one another and the business as a whole, and it's also allowed them to be less frantic around shift changes, which has made a very big difference.

Read on to learn how Darian thinks about checklists and to download opening and closing checklist templates!